High volume printing assembly
View Patent ↗A high volume printing assembly includes an array of printers. Each printer includes a housing. Locking fee project beyond the housing on one side. Apertures corresponding to the fee are located on an opposing side of the housing to receive the feet of a neighboring printer. The printers are daisy-chained together by means of serial data-in and data-out ports. A control station is provided to monitor and control the array. The array may be disposed as a column of printers mounted upon a suitable table or alternatively it can also be provided as a row of printers stacked side by side upon a suitable mounting frame. In a preferred embodiment each of the printers is of a high-speed type that includes a pagewidth printhead.
1. A high volume printing assembly including:
a column of vertically-stacked inkjet printers mounted in parallel to each other, each printer having a housing including-features engaging neighboring printers in the column, said features comprising feet extending from a first side of each housing and corresponding apertures located in an opposed second side of each housing;
means for feeding webs of print media in parallel to said column of vertically-stacked printers;
wherein each printer includes an inlet data port and an outlet data port and the printers of the array are connected together by interconnection of the inlet data port and to outlet data port of each printer, the assembly further including a control station in communication with a data port of one of the printers of the array.
2. A high volume printing assembly according to claim 1 , wherein each housing includes two or more sets of apertures corresponding to the feet in order that a printer of the column may be located at any one of two or more positions relative to an adjacent printer.
3. A high volume printing assembly according to claim 2 , wherein the feet and the apertures are arranged to facilitate locking of a foot in a corresponding aperture by rotation of the foot.
4. A high volume printing assembly according to claim 1 , wherein the inlet data port and the outlet data port are arranged to support serial data communication.
5. A high volume printing assembly according to claim 1 , wherein each printer of the column includes a page width print head.
6. A high volume printing assembly according to claim 1 , wherein each printer in the stack is offset from its neighboring printers for angled web feed and exit from said printers.